The Truth About Teens Sexting

April 15, 2009

By COLE KAZDIN and IMAEYEN IBANGA via

'GMA' Holds a Town Hall Meeting to Discuss the Growing Teen Trend

ABC News

Sex easily and quickly integrated itself into the digital age; and now the teen trend of "sexting" -- where a user sends sexually explicit images or messages via text on a cell phone -- has parents struggling for a way to address the situation.

"We're seeing 14, 15 and 16-year-olds and up are very commonly sharing naked pictures or sexual pictures of themselves," said Internet safety expert Parry Aftab, of Wired Safety. "We're talking about kids who are too young to wear bras who are posing in them, and then topless and then actually engaged in sex or even in masturbation. So we are seeing a lot of kids who are sexually active."

The results of this sexual file sharing can be devastating, as in the case of Jessica Logan.

Jessica's Story

Logan, a Cincinnati high school student, sent a nude cell phone photo to her boyfriend. But after their relationship ended, he sent the image to 100 students at four different schools.

Afterward, she endured a barrage of harsh treatment.

"She was harassed. She was called names -- filthy names," said Jessica's mother Cynthia Logan. "Things are thrown at her. Her reaction to all this was -- when she would come home -- anger, snapping. And I would ask her what was wrong and she wouldn't… she wasn't divulging everything, just that she was having a hard time."

Jessica tried to combat what was happening to her by speaking out about her personal experience. With her voice disguised and her image obscured, she spoke to a local television station about her ordeal.

"She said to me it was the stupidest thing that she did," Cynthia Logan said. "She said, 'I do realize I made a mistake and I wanted to talk to the parents.' And she started to cry."

Jessica Logan Commits Suicide

The fallout from her sexting experience proved too much for the 18-year-old to handle. Just two months after her interview with a Cincinnati television station, Cynthia Logan found that her daughter hanged herself in her bedroom in July 2008.

Now Cynthia Logan has made it her mission to educate people about the dangers of sexting, using her daughter's tale as an anecdote.

"The challenge is, if you see someone that has a nude photo, you walk up to that person and you say that, 'You know, why don't you just delete that photo instead of spreading it?'" she said.